Vilmarie Narloch PsyD - Harm Reduction and Policy

This is Psychedelics Today. I'm your host, Joe Moore. Today on the show, we have Dr. Vilmarie Narlok, inside D, and she actually works for students for sensible drug policy. I'm going to read you her bio here. She's the drug education manager at SSDP, students for sensible drug policy. In this role, Vilmarie oversees the development and implementation of the SSDP peer education program, which is a training program for SSDP members to become certified to deliver SSDP's drug education program. Just say no to their peers. Vilmarie is passionate about reforming drug education in the U.S. and abroad, and has dedicated years of study on the topic for her dissertation. Vilmarie has taken on this position because as an organization driven by students with exceptional knowledge on drug policy and other drug use-related issues, SSDP is uniquely positioned and qualified to be developing a drug education program. Additionally, Vilmarie educates staff and the network on the current state of research and treatment issues with regard to substance use disorders and mental health. Vilmarie aims to aid in the connection of policy and practice by helping our network understand the impact of policy on the access to treatment and the development of drug education. Vilmarie is also an associate professor at the University of Minnesota at the University of Minnesota at the University of Minnesota. Vilmarie earned her master's in counseling and psychological services from St. Mary's University of Minnesota and a PsyD in clinical psychology during her recent time at Roosevelt. She was a graduate student research assistant with Roosevelt University, Illinois' Consortium on Drug Policy. Her work at ICDP included research support, report co-authorship, and event planning and coordination. Vilmarie is interested in drug education, access to treatment and harm reduction policy, and her practice have led her to numerous projects, including the provision of counseling and harm reduction services to students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and DePaul University, serving as a member of the Chicago Consortium on College Alcohol Harm Reduction, a pre-doctoral internship in the Adult Behavioral Services Department in a local public health department, and a post-doctoral fellowship in a small private agency where she provided therapy for individuals, couples, families, and groups, in addition to supervising interns. Additionally, Vilmarie has been an adjunct instructor teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology and substance use disorder treatment. She has dedicated her studies and clinical work to advanced harm reduction as the standard of practice for substance use disorders. In doing so, she has sought opportunities to educate others in her field about harm reduction, including her students. Vilmarie's dissertation titled, What Youth Want, Developing a Drug Education Curriculum Based on Youth Guidance and Evidence-Based Principles, inspired her to continue to advocate for effective drug education on a professional level, which led to her current position at SSDP. Additionally, Vilmarie's next personal career goal is to become trained to deliver psychedelic psychotherapy, which she considers to be the future of psychological practice. It's quite a mouthful. It's really cool that Vilmarie took the time to talk to us, and this is our first contact on the show with somebody from SSDP, which we're really happy about. And we couldn't really have asked for a more informed person on the show. So we get into all sorts of stuff here, from harm reduction to kind of examples about this Just Say No program that she's developed with SSDP and how that works. We get into some other interesting stuff about particular harm reduction projects Vilmarie's worked on and how certain things have played out in her area, the Chicago zone. And yeah, it was a really fun interview with Vilmarie. And she even contributed to our Navigating Psychedelics class, Lessons on Self-Care and Integration, as a masterclass teacher, giving us kind of tactical advice on, how to do harm reduction from SSDP's perspective. SSDP does work with students. So they hear a lot of stuff and they are able to develop programs and education around that. So yeah, check out Just Say No, K-N-O-W, not N-O. Obviously, the DARE program didn't work or I wouldn't be here. So thanks again for listening. Let us know what you think of the show. Feel free to hit us up and give us some feedback. SSDP has a pretty strong presence all over social media. So you can check them out. Facebook, Twitter, wherever. And I believe there's regular events around the country, US. I don't know about internationally, but they do a conference that is pretty highly regarded. Some people from the Boulder Psychedelic Club went to one, I think, six or eight months ago in the Northwest and they had a great time there, learned a lot. I really want to interview some of those people about the conference to see how they liked it, what they learned, what it's like to be a member of a local SSDP chapter to reduce harm, educate themselves and others. All that kind of stuff. So that's actually what we're trying to do in our class too, but giving a little bit more direction around and context around psychedelics because there's such a weird class of drugs that are very powerful, probably the most powerful psychiatric drug humans have ever come across. So yeah, we really owe it to ourselves to get appropriately educated on this stuff when we're going to do it. So check out our class. Links are on psychedelicstoday.com site or you can check out our page. On psychedelicstoday.teachable.com. If you want to contact us, hit us up at psychedelicstodayemail at gmail.com. We're also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, maybe Pinterest. Let us know if you want to hear from particular authors or any people producing YouTube videos or anything like that, or want to hear us give a breakdown on particular drugs or something. Just hit us up, let us know what you want and we'll try to make it happen. We would also love reviews on Facebook. On our Facebook page or on iTunes. Either would be lovely. Thanks again. Take care. Welcome back to Psychedelics Today with your hosts, Kyle and Joe. Today we are here with Dr. Vilmarie Narlock, the Drug Education Manager at SSTP, the Students for Sensual Drug Policy. And Vilmarie is a clinical psychologist. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining. Thank you so much for having me, guys. Yeah. So do we want to jump in a little bit about your background? And how you got involved with SSTP? And also maybe a little bit about your educational background? Yeah, sure. So I actually didn't find out about SSTP until I was in my doctoral program. So I came to Chicago to start my doctorate at Roosevelt University. And I knew that while I was there, I wanted to do some sort of assistantship somewhere. When I was interviewing, I was telling one of the professors about what my interests were. And I was like, well, I'm going to do some research on drugs and substance use treatment, particularly with young people. And he sort of remembered, he's like, yeah, hey, I think there's this person here at this school that's doing some research on that here in Illinois. And it turned out he was referring to Kathy Kane Willis and the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy. So I met with her. And once I started school at Roosevelt, she brought me in and I got to be a researcher. And I was like, I'm going to do some research on drugs and substance use treatment, particularly with young people. And it turned out he was referring to Kathy Kane with them for my time at Roosevelt. And it just so happened that Kathy was the advisor for the Roosevelt chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. So she was sort of like, well, you're going to work for me anyway. You might as well go to these meetings and see if it's interesting to you. So I went to a meeting and I didn't stop going to the meetings. So I really just enjoyed it. And I was like, well, I'm going to go to these meetings and see if it's interesting to me. And I ended up being like a really good like balance for me to be working on like the clinical side of things and learning about that a little bit more and then being able to sort of be active on the policy side of things and sort of changing some of the not so great things that I was facing in my clinical work. So it kind of helped me have that outlet a little bit. Awesome. Can you describe a little bit about what the SSDP is? We get a lot of like questions about maybe how to get involved in the psychedelic world or drug policy world. And, you know, it seems like there's chapters all over the United States at many colleges. So it's probably be a really good resource for students. Yeah, absolutely. Like if you want to be involved in psychedelic research or any sort of psychedelic work and your student getting involved with SSDP is like the first step for sure. So many of our students are, you know, interested in psychedelics and are able to then have access to a lot of the fine folks doing really great work in this area. So, you know, we work closely with MAPS as well. So it's like just a great connection to have. But in general, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, it's a grassroots organization made up entirely of students. We have, I think, over 300 chapters and now 26 countries all over the world, which is just incredible to me. And yeah, the overall, our overarching goal of SSDP is to end the war on drugs. And we do that in a of different ways the cool thing is each chapter kind of has a little bit of autonomy to figure out what they're into and work on those issues so if you're into cannabis reform you know you can get support in doing that work if you're into psychedelics you can get support and you know researching that or getting into that in my sort of experience I was really into harm reduction so I did a lot around harm reduction and sort of focusing on that as as far as clinical work is concerned so I was able to sort of meld my my things together there and so for example my chapter we did a lot of education so really similar to what the just say no program looks like we were doing a little bit of that at Roosevelt while I was there and because I was working at the consortium on drug policy we were doing a lot of work around heroin use so a lot of work on harm reduction with heroin we worked on the Good Samaritan law in Illinois and things like naloxone access in Illinois so like it's it was really cool to be involved in these really really important efforts and that's happening all over the world with SSTP it's so awesome so powerful to like create this network of now educated empowered active people working towards drug safety and decriminalization or yeah just killing this drug war thing that's so nasty like do you do you have a particular reason or like any any kind of particular push with this drug war thing like why why is it important to you mm-hmm yeah well for me as a psychologist you know on the clinical side of things it's things like access to good treatment for you know people who use drugs and people with substance use disorders it's things like utilizing evidence-based you know harm reduction measures to save lives and things like this and you know ultimately also when it comes to young people is you know effective drug education my dissertation was actually on drug education and what young people thought of their experiences not surprisingly they didn't think very highly of the kind of education that they were getting and so that was you know I have a goal for me too is to do something different for young people so that they could learn about drugs and drug use in a way that was actually going to be useful so not like the dare program trying to scare people using poorly educated police officers to educate kids about drugs all I remember was the PCP lessons from the cops that came in to teach me about it and it's like oh you can turn into the Hulk at any moment you want using PCP like oh great thanks middle school I think that was fifth grade like what are you guys doing yeah I think my favorite lesson was they brought in sort of this like tackle box looking thing like drug paraphernalia yeah like you know your normal stuff that you might see you know pipes and things and and needles and syringes and then there were like sort of the I guess at that point in my life stranger things so like hollowed out random items you know I think my favorite was the sharpie marker just thinking like wow people are really like creative and resourceful when they're trying to use drugs and that was my takeaway from that lesson that's fascinating Kyle did you get some dare time I did it over by the time you okay no I didn't I never know I know you guys are pretty young but like I didn't know like when when that switch happened yeah we had it from I think like fifth grade all the way up to eighth grade and they just pretty much said you will go to jail if you use drugs and then friends started smoking weed and they're like hey it's not as bad as they told us it was and then you know it started leading other things for some folks yeah hmm interesting so your background is in harm reduction I'm kind of curious there's this I guess what I'm trying to get at is like the difference between educating versus like not educating and so or like harm reduction techniques so likes for example in Ohio there's you know a town that wants to do away with Narcan and you know the cops are just like nope we don't want to do that anymore it should be like you know if those people do it like two or three times they they have the right to die I don't know what do you think about like a stance on that versus like saving somebody's life and with addiction and whatnot I don't think you'd be surprised to hear that I think that is ridiculous this whole like free strikes kind of idea and just the the fact that like anyone can say that anyone doesn't have a right to live is just I can't it's completely inhumane I mean I think everyone has it has a right to a decent life and if that means they're they need to use Narcan a few times to get to a point maybe where they can get that they want at that point or you know just live you know and function in whatever way makes sense for them who are we to tell them how to live their life so we just did this July 4th episode I don't know if you caught it where it was all about cognitive liberty stuff like that and um it really kind of struck a similar chord like who is anybody to tell another person what they can and can't do with their own body and it's uh you know really interesting yeah and just the the thought the audacity that it's okay to put somebody in a cage for 30 years or whatever or just yeah which I don't know which one's worse but yeah you know who knows it's crazy that that kind of thing is so nuts so do you like with your work with ssdp so far you've kind of you've done a bunch with ssdp for the last bit when did you start with ssdp wow that's great what um what have been some wins with ssdp that you've been a part of that's kind of been really encouraging yeah so um we'll definitely be the good samaritan uh medical amnesty law in illinois and meloxone access and things like this um also on the campus level I was able to um create and push for a good samaritan policy on campus for students when I was there um and that took way longer than it should have considering considering what it does but um so it was it was definitely tough and it was it took a lot of patience but those are um those are some things that I'm you know really proud of as far as my involvement with can you give a little more detail on the ssdp good samaritan rules or law yeah yeah so um in general the good samaritan um policy um basically provides protections for someone who um if you're in a sort of medical emergency related to drug use you can call um for help call 9-1-1 and be able to get help without fear of getting in trouble if you have drugs in your system or are in possession of something um and there are some limitations depending on where you are um and some of the laws are a little bit different but um generally that's what it is and on campus it's kind of the same thing where you won't get kicked out of your dorm or won't like lose scholarship and things like this um if you're caught on campus with um something and you have to call for help for whatever reason yeah that's great and hugely important yeah there in my where i'm from new hampshire there was this whole uh push right as i became 21 around internal possession laws around alcohol and that was right around 2005 ish so you could get arrested as an underage person for possessing alcohol internally which is crazy um but you know it's still there like uh you know the live free or die state this you know uh supposed libertarian haven uh you know that's it's kind of crazy like that's still happening and it sounds like the good samaritan law is kind of a uh kind of a spin on trying to fix that yeah yeah and it's so i i see it as far as like on campus it's it's kind of the the answer to zero tolerance policies for example right um whereas you know if in that situation if you had to call for help you may get kicked out even though you're trying to have your friends not die or whatever um yeah so so it's kind of addressing those issues um and also like the idea that the number one reason um people don't call for help is fear of getting caught or if you're getting in trouble um and that leads to more sort of like hidden use and and more potential risk right that's great um can can you speak a little bit about the just say no campaign because it seems like there's a right now um as far as our our project at ssd right yeah So the Just Say No peer education program started up a few years ago. My friend and fellow colleague, Francis Fu, and I had been talking for a while about doing something around education for SSDP. And we sort of came to the idea of putting together this curriculum in a sort of peer format. So and the idea is based off of, you know, a lot of students feel like they're pretty informed about drugs and drug use, but felt like they lacked some of the resources to be able to point people to when they ask them questions about drugs or drug policy even. And so part of it was like, well, let's put together like really strong resource for for students. And like, let's make our students like the people that. People are going to. They already were. But like now we can formalize this and provide them with the resources that they need. So that's sort of where it came from. And wanting to. Sort of have a basis for our students and chapter members being able to have open, honest conversations with their peers about drugs, drug use and drug policy and all the intersections with those issues. So we created this curriculum and it was student based so we had a lot of students helping us that was like a really important thing for me is to make sure that A significant amount of the resources and the the ideas were coming from students, so we have that. And then we did also have sort of like a working group of experts in the field. Who helped us sort of find the resources and kind of give us some feedback on on what was going to be most effective. So, and that sort of how things started is is kind of having these conversations with students and with these experts and putting together the curriculum. And so it's sort of a two tiered thing. So it's the the training curriculum that our students go through. And that's 12 different lessons on like anything you would ever want to know about drugs, drug policy harm reduction stigma. And then the other piece is the justice. Lessons and that's sort of the drug harm reduction education lessons that once our students are trained, they can sort of deliver that to Their peers on our campus. Yeah, that's great. And where do they, where do students get trained for that. Do they, is there a specific location or do you go around to schools presenting this and doing trainings. So the way it exists right now for this initial first year sort of pilot. It's all in a Google documents with Links to all of the resources. So it's a kind of a self study independent study format where they read through the resources and then for each lesson. There are a set of questions that they have to respond to and provide us with feedback. And so that's how that's how I know that they've completed a lesson and then they can sort of go forward to the next one. I'll check that out. So it's that's the way it's been for this year. And a lot of the feedback that I've gotten is that It's a lot of information. It's a lot to go through. So one of the things I'm doing is condensing the lessons into like webinars, so that I can present those They can live on YouTube, or I can go to a chapter And present, you know, a couple of them at once and it can kind of get that that way. So kind of changing it up a little bit. We'll still have the The documents that Google Doc with all the links to all the resources so they can always have Access to that. It'll just be a little bit more efficient for them. Great. Yeah, if you go to ssdp.org/justsayno, there's tons of great material on there. I was just on there right now. It's like you have slides for alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, cocaine, DMT, ketamine, LSD, MDMA, nicotine, pretty much like everything. Yeah, I was going through some of the PowerPoints. And yeah, it's really great information and Of course, too. It's really great that you guys put this together for the community and the students and Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's great. I've certainly learned a lot myself. I mean, I'll have students that'll send me a resource. And it's just like, I didn't need to know this thing, you know, so I've learned a lot too. And that's been like really cool. You can also get to the training curriculum from that website as well. So if anyone's interested in checking that out, they can But yeah, cool. What's the overall goal. Do you think this this particular program. Yeah, the overall goal is really harm reduction and ensuring that if young people are going to use drugs, which we know they do that they can do so safely. With some sort of background knowledge and understanding of what these drugs could potentially do And how to get the most out of the experience. If they're going to Great. Can you give us an example of say like a harm reduction technique. Like, what do you guys have in there for harm reduction. Yeah, there's, there's so much. So with each Less than what you do those modules we go through, like, there's different components. So there's like Things like prevalence rates for use of that particular substance. There's Things like the effects of the drug, including like therapeutic and potential negative effects. And any potential harm that could be associated with that drug. How to identify and respond to an emergency with that particular drug. And then sort of general harm reduction principles we talked about drugs that and setting in each of these lessons as it applies to That drug. So things like knowing what you're taking, you know, understanding what the dose could be or should be for you. You know, talk a little bit about drug checking in there too for those that it's most relevant. We also go through like the history and the origin of the drug, just because, like, I'm kind of a big nerd and I find that stuff really interesting. So I threw that in there. And we talked about like even notable figures so important people in history that have been associated with Those drugs and There's also like how it works in the body. And we also go into like a legal aspect of it. So what policies are for the jug and And any sort of additional resources that one might go to And the way that it's set up is they're sort of in a template format. So there's certain slides are certain sections that can be filled in by whoever is delivering the module. To be more Tailored to their community. So there's a section where they can put in any information that they might know about, like the prevalence of use on their campus of that drug and then in the policy section, whatever their local policies and our laws are around that drug. Awesome. So I don't know if you've run into this at all. But, you know, Joe and I are putting together this navigating psychedelics course and integration. And, you know, we're we want to go over some harm reduction techniques and whatnot with it. And I was just having a conversation with somebody and it just kind of came up about providing instructions on how to do drugs versus just providing harm reduction. And so, like, what is the difference there? You know, is there any, you know, if you're presenting like these harm reduction things, it's like an argument is like, well, you're just giving them instructions on how to do this stuff. And it's like, is that I don't know. Have you ever run across that before people? Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely like something we consider I mean, SSP in general, like we always say we don't condemn or condone drug use. Right. So it's definitely more harm reduction focused and we try to keep it as developmentally appropriate as possible. So, for example, like, I'm going to be going to Denver this week and and tail sort of doing a tailored down version of this for a local high school. And so, like, we might not have all of those components in the high school version. You know, we just have to sort of think about our audience. Right. And think about who we're talking to because, you know, there are some harms that are different for younger people than for someone who's a little bit older. But I think, like, if you're an adult, you know, and you want to know how to use drugs. I think it would be useful to have that resource so that you are going to be doing something in a way that's going to be less harmful. You know, for example, a lot of like syringe exchange or needle exchange programs will offer things like, you know, how to find a vein and how to, you know, good vein care to make sure that you're injecting in a way that's going to prevent you from getting infections or abscesses and things like this. So, I think it would be useful to have that resource so that you are going to be doing something in a way that's going to prevent you from getting infections or abscesses and things like this. So, during the Oakland conference with some people about, you know, there's needle drugs and then there's, you know, other stuff that's maybe slightly less harmful, you know, for instance, nitrous oxide, like how could you reduce the number of brain cells killed, for instance, like, you know, that people are going to keep doing nitrous. There's no way around that. So like, how do you, is there a way to, um, reduce that? And I think there is, I still want to dig into that a little bit, but yeah, there's, there is explicitly a harm reduction aspect to it. And I totally agree with you, Phil Marie. Um, Kyle and I have been debating that last couple of weeks, like how do we handle that? And is there a legal gray area? Yeah, probably. But you know, to help people, we have to play in that legal gray area, I think. I mean, I think we all kind of are in that space and, you know, anyone that who's in drug policy reform or talking about drugs for your job, you're, you know, definitely playing in that area. There was a case, I've brought it up on the show a few times. There's a case in my county here in Colorado where a, um, a person was charged with manslaughter by the district attorney for, uh, advising somebody on how to smoke a fentanyl patch after the person had asked. Yeah, I heard you talking about this. Oh my God. It made me so upset that, you know, a single text message, even though it was qualified with, you could die. Yeah. Be very careful. Like still, you know, it's like suicide is suicide. Like it, it was kind of like he was asking for it. Really? That's what it sounds like to me. Yeah. And in, in Illinois, we've had this issue with, uh, drug induced homicide laws sort of, uh, superseding the good Samaritan law. So if someone, for example, is using heroin with a friend as people are, you know, common to do, um, and the person overdoses and dies, the friends could be charged with drug induced homicide because they maybe, maybe just happened to be the one to, to purchase the heroin that day. Um, like it was their day to, so yeah, there's, that's definitely an issue that is, yeah. Is that a number that's, that's climbing drug induced homicide charges? Um, I haven't looked at it recently. I know that it's been like, there's been a big push. There was a case, um, in Illinois recently where, um, it was a woman and her, her partner and, um, I think he passed away and she was being charged with drug induced homicide. And I think eventually it, you know, she, she was able to get, um, get that fixed. And so she was no longer being charged with drug induced homicide, but, um, that was a big sort of, you know, um, case that we were all watching very closely, uh, to see, you know, what direction this was going to go. Um, because I do think in, in certain areas in Illinois, that has been the push is to try to try to crack down, um, on the heroin issue by, you know, criminalizing it more. There was a weird case in my town years ago. I don't know whatever came of it or if the person got charged, but I guess a kid ended up committing suicide after they don't really know, but they found a bowl of weed and they said that there was some residue of PCP on there. And, um, so they were going to find the person that sold them the weed and charge them for homicide for lacing marijuana with PCP or something like that. And I don't know, I don't know whatever happened to it, but yeah, just you guys talking about that reminded me that, yeah, that's a thing. Yeah. Like there's definitely room there for reasonable doubt. I would hope the court would, uh, the jury would push that one out. Holy moly. It's scary. Um, so what, what else has been going on with SSDP? Are there, are there other projects coming up or that you're working on that are exciting or you want to talk about? Sure. I mean, um, what we do have are, we're starting to plan for our conference next March. It'll be the beginning of March. Uh, in Baltimore. So we're really excited, um, about that and to be in Baltimore for, um, for our conference. Um, I mean, there's always interesting stuff going on. Um, we're, we'll be at DPA at the reform conference in October. Um, and there'll be a lot of SSDPers on panels. I'm organizing a panel on harm reduction on campus. So there'll be a few SSDPers on there with me. I'll be moderating that. Um, and just, you know, every, every SSDPer has something going on in their own communities too. Sometimes it doesn't even reach me, but, um, but there's some really cool stuff, uh, going on. And I think if, if you're interested in SSDP, even if you're not a student, um, you could always check out a meeting, um, or get in touch with your local chapter to see what they're working on, um, and support them any way you can. Being connected to the colleges and SSDP, somebody from, I think, USA Today reached out to us about, uh, drug use and trends among college kids. And I was trying to do some research to figure out, you know, are there any statistics on the rise of drug use or anything like that? Do you know, um, have you seen any trends or a rise in drug use on campuses among college age kids? Um, just in doing like the, the work for the just say no modules, I, I use, um, the monitoring, the future, uh, survey data and the, um, national survey on drug use and health. So those are the two sort of big datasets that I use for like our prevalence slides. Um, from what I can see, um, from what I can remember at this moment, um, it seems that there's kind of like a, um, I guess a plateau. There hasn't been much significant rise in, in drug use in among like college age students that I can tell. Um, but yeah, so I think, but it's still definitely a concern. I still get, I get emails from college folks, you know, college administrators. And, um, I'm also part of this like health promotion listserv. Um, and it's always a question about like what other program could we be doing and about drugs and alcohol. And so there's definitely a push for more services and more, um, resources for students on campus, which I think is good. Even if the numbers haven't risen necessarily, like it still happens. You know, young people are still, um, you know, are, are still at risk if they don't know what they're doing. Uh, so it's important that they have those resources. Realm. Um, has there been any concern among like SSDP or anywhere in the policy world with the whole thing with like Jeff Session wanting to crack down and start the DARE program back up and stuff like that? Um, I mean, we definitely talk about it. We definitely are keeping our eyes on um, what's happening. Um, and you know, when, when it comes down to it, we sign on to, to letters against, uh, you know, things that seem unreasonable and not sensible with regard to drug policy. Um, so like recently there was the, um, they were trying to sort of revamp the analogs act and give sessions a little bit more power in that regard. Uh, so naturally we were against that. Um, so yeah, so anytime something's coming down the pipe, we're, we are very keeping close tabs on, on what's going on. Um, and you know, the great thing about SSDP is we have so many students that are like ready to go, ready to be active. Um, if, you know, we've got a big, a big thing to push for. Power in numbers. That's awesome. For sure. Yeah. And this, uh, whole thing, I think it was Dr. Carl Hart mentioned it. This move of just becoming a little more open about used when you're comfortable or if you're in a position to be able to do that. There's a lot of people that can't, but when you can, it's a really powerful move to be more open. And I, I, I'm in this funny situation, right? Where if my employer found out psychedelics today might, uh, become a little more bare bones, but, um, I think we'll be okay. But, uh, at least on here, I can be a little more open and, you know, Kyle being in graduate school has to be a little careful due to licensure issues. And I don't know, Kyle, are you still running into issues with that? Um, I mean, it was just that weird bump up with like trying to interview for practicum and, you know, that, you know, cause I, I was, I also put on my resume that I was volunteering for maps and that had been part of some of the MDMA training. And so they're, you know, looking at me like, what are you doing? And, you know, it was at a college, very kind of, conservative. And, you know, they, they were like, we don't really know how this is going to fly when we show it to like our psychiatrists and the higher ups. And I was like, Oh God, I just like, you know, commit some, some professional suicide here by saying that I'm associated with, you know, maps and this and that, but they were actually really cool about it. And they, you know, the person interviewed me, it was like, you know, personally, I think psychedelics are the future of medicine, but, you know, we're also kind of dealing with a very conservative system. And, you know, I'm just kind of worried. They might look at this funny. So, I mean, that was one example that I ran into where I was like, man, like, do I hide this stuff? Do I not talk about it? Do I not put it on my resume? And they were really thankful that I did. Cause they're like, that's why we want an interview. Like we've never seen anything like this before. Um, I mean where I was interviewing, cause you know, in my town, it's not, you know, I was walking around with like my volunteer shirt from psychedelic science, like, Oh God, what kind of comments am I going to get? Um, but yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I do get nervous with that. I was like, I don't know, like, am I kind of committing some, I, I, I know that it's like a benefit. Cause if we do push towards legalization of MDMA, it's going to be like, you know, the forefront, but yeah, it's like playing, you're kind of like walking on like a eggshells a little bit where you're like, this is coming up and this is probably the future, but also not a lot of people are accepting of it as well. Yeah, I hear that for sure. I had a lot of interesting interview conversations like that too, while I was going for, for practicum and internship and stuff like this, where people would have, you know, when it came down to that question, once they were kind of going through and like, what is SSDP? And so it's like having to be, um, prepared to answer that in a way that is going to be appropriate for that setting, wherever it is you are. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think that's something that our students ask about too a lot. It's like, should I put this on my resume? Um, and, you know, it kind of depends on what you're trying to do, um, in, in, in your work and what your career is going to be. If you need to be a little bit more careful about that, we actually do have a lesson in the training curriculum for the just say no program, all about sort of self disclosure and sort of like finding that balance. So, because it's such an important thing that comes up so often, um, with our folks that it's important for us to have the discussion and support students. It's hard. Yeah. What type of tips or advice do you have in that? Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is sort of, um, thinking about it for yourself and where you're wanting to go. Um, and also thinking about like, if someone's asking you like, oh, do you use this drug or have you used drugs? Um, being mindful of like, why are they asking? Um, what could this disclosure, you know, lead to, um, you know, kind of thinking about where you are, who you're, who you're with. And, and that kind of thing and who you're talking to, um, and just kind of protecting yourself. And in a lot of ways, like self disclosure, like you said, Joe, um, can really help push some things forward and, and get sort of more understanding and decreasing the stigma. Um, but for a lot of people, you know, especially people of color and minorities who are, you know, are in a more tricky situation when it comes to, uh, drug use thinking, you know, y'all, have to consider that. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for that. I think, I think it's really important for anybody getting involved, know how to navigate this. Cause it is, it's such a gray area. It's like, what do you do? How do you present yourself? And like some of the, the, the, um, like interview things that I've put out, I'm like, oh, I wonder if they just never got back to me. Cause I had that on my resume, you know? Um, they looked at that and they're like, nope, we don't want to have anything to do with that. So, and you know, when it comes down to it, it's kind of like, okay, I don't really want to have anything to do with you. Yeah. And it's like, why would I want to work for anybody that doesn't accept that? And if I do hide it, I mean, we live in the age of, uh, and nothing's really private anymore. You just do a Google search and things are going to come up, you know? It's like, I could hide it off that for a little bit, but you know, if they decided to kind of just search a little bit, not too far away. Yeah. It's, it's so complicated yesterday at this, uh, DMT event in Boulder, there was actually a registered nurse. That's going to be a nurse practitioner soon said, how do I get involved? I was like, well, you know, my advice at that moment was actually post on, uh, these different psychedelic club groups online say, Hey, I'm an RN. I would love to be involved. What can I do? And then also just email maps and, you know, if you're an NP, you're a very valuable asset, just like psychiatrists and SIDs, like very valuable assets to the psychedelic and harm reduction movement. And, you know, you will be recruited. Your efforts will be needed. Yeah. I actually had an NP reach out to me not too long ago because she wanted to be involved in like help in some way. She had seen our, uh, the just say no program and like wanted to see if we could use any sort of, you know, medical, um, expertise. And it was like, yeah, absolutely. So, um, she's been helping me with, with some of the materials and we're coming up with, um, this sort of like quick, uh, harm reduction guide for like emergencies related to, um, drugs. So taking from our, um, just say no modules and sort of condensing it, um, into a quick guide, um, and in consideration of like medical concerns and stuff. So that was super cool. And I was very, very grateful to her for reaching out for that. Have you taken any training on administering naloxone? Yep. What is that like? We haven't really talked about that on, on the show. Yeah, it's, um, it's actually pretty simple. I mean, in the, in the moment, obviously it would be a little bit more complicated, but, um, generally the way that we do trainings, um, here, if you'd like the Chicago recovery Alliance, um, or Midwest harm reduction Institute, um, it's, uh, you, learn all about, um, like overdose response. So how to identify an overdose and all the steps that should be taken. And then, um, what you need to know to administer naloxone there's, and the not naloxone now comes in so many different forms. You know, there's like the intranasal spray, there's the, um, sort of self injector thing that just sort of like, it's like a little robot thing that tells you what to do. And you just like stick it in someone's leg and it's all done for you. Those are very expensive, however. So generally we're, we're still, uh, working with sort of the bare bones, um, you know, vials and syringe, um, situation where we've got the, um, kits. I don't know. I think I have one here somewhere, but, um, yeah, so usually we put together a kit and it comes with a couple of syringes, a couple of doses. Oftentimes it'll have a little card that walks you through the steps. Um, you know, so if you're in the moment and you can't remember everything you got to do, you've got the resource right there. Um, and generally what happens, you, you fill the syringe or the needle with the dose that you need, um, stick it in someone's leg or butt, um, and inject. And that usually should help them, you know, it'll stop the overdose essentially. Um, and it does put people in withdrawal. So it's not necessarily a comfortable situation, not a pleasant situation, but, um, alive. And that's part, um, nowadays with the sort of increased, uh, potency of heroin and the, um, fentanyl that we're seeing, it's taking a lot more naloxone to reverse an overdose. So that's something to, to keep in mind. It was always have more than one dose on hand. Um, in case that, that needs to happen in case you need to administer it more than once for, for that. So, yeah, I mean, it's really simple. Um, I think, and it's for, for what it does, you know, the fact that you're saving a life, it's a pretty simple thing to do. And really everyone should be trained to do it because it's so easy. Um, and it's pretty easy to, um, to identify if someone's overdosing, you know, blue lips and cold and clammy skin, um, not breathing, you know, that kind of thing are pretty easy to, to notice. So. Yeah. Yeah. Um, up to speed, but I'm really excited about these fentanyl test strips that they've made available in the last couple of weeks. Yeah. Super interesting. I don't know if you guys had a chance to, um, read the study that insight did using strips. I don't know if it's the same strips, but, um, but yeah, they, they did a study, um, that just came out in may, I think, um, using, you know, their participants that go into insight, um, and giving them the opportunity to, to test for fentanyl. And I guess it was something like 80% of what folks were bringing in um had fentanyl in it um and they also sort of asked like you know knowing that there's fentanyl in it is that going to change your use and there were some interesting sort of outcomes there where some people were like no and other people were like well maybe i'll use a little bit less or i'll you know um do some some harm reduction around my dose or stuff like that so it's tough right because you never know the dose it's just yes it tests positive is it like three micrograms or is it like five five milligrams in there which is scarier and uh you know as an opiate user like if you're a regular injector you might be more tolerant and it would maybe not kill you at two milligrams but maybe it would definitely kill me at two milligrams um yeah and i guess uh i've talked about it on the show but i've used fentanyl in surgeries i've had multiple surgeries and i got it three times i believe so uh probably no tolerance at this point but a few months ago i did so um you know it's always interesting like it's demonized but it's like this really awesome medical thing that helps anesthesiologists quite a bit i think it's huge cost savings um for medicine which i wish i paid less for my surgeries but yeah sure yeah i think you know one of one thing that you said earlier about like i wish we had you know some good data around this stuff like the reason we don't is because of prohibition like right like we can't we can't really research anything effectively uh because of that we can't get this data because people are hiding it because not no one's going to report this openly um so so we can't we're going to rely on emergency room data that's publicly reported which is awful yeah right right yeah our coroner data we've used that too in research um for like overdose research like it was just last week that the uh the guy who produced those hangover movies so like this famous producer just od'd on uh cocaine and fentanyl mixed in manhattan so it like kind of shows that there is that kind of crux uh like i don't know bleeding over maybe accidentally or otherwise um fentanyl into cocaine and and it's going to hit these wealthy folks which maybe will scare them into getting some test stuff and hopefully helping support some of these organizations like ssdp dpa like all these groups that are doing work in a positive direction i i could only hope that's what will happen i i you know maybe they'll ask why wait why why was that dude doing fentanyl there's no really good reason for a super wealthy guy to be snorting fentanyl like if he's looking for that there's a lot safer ways to do it right right i mean and and yeah that was sort of the the trend with heroin use um once you know it started reaching the the suburbs and and young people in the suburbs that were more affluent um there was you know a bit of a push for resources and and life-saving measures that didn't really exist before um when our communities of color were being ravaged in the same way um by heroin so um it's a little messed up that it that that's what it has to take you know for us to be able to get services to the people that need it most um but yeah i mean it takes the dude from the hangover movies to get some money into the into the hands of the people who who are doing this work then you know i'm not gonna say no to that yeah the hope is that it scared his friends and his friends now throw millions at these groups to do the work they're doing hopefully end prohibition and uh you know have this nice regulated safe market where people know what's happening it's it's insane you know um uh disclosure i'll disclose something so this past weekend we uh you know had some fun with some some mdma and nobody had a hangover the next day nobody and what is that due to it's due to like clean sourcing and not going through you know 18 hops down the drug ownership chain and what is that and it's ridiculous and it's all because of prohibition so these people that are regular users of mdma and always get hung over like what's going on like what are you doing it's probably not just mdma there's probably a ton of amphetamine and caffeine whatever else yeah often i think they mix in you know strange cheap chemicals and it's all this prohibition stuff and i hope college students are are kind of getting that message in ssdp yeah yeah we definitely are i mean you know there's there's a lot of interest in drug checking um making sure that what you're getting is what you're hoping to be getting um you know to the best of our abilities with the with the resources that we have and these test kits um but yeah it's definitely something that uh our members and definitely their peers are are really wanting to be sure that they're not getting crap and that what they're using is going to be safe safer so tied into universities this is actually a new thought i just had right now so with test kits like reagent test kits like there's this you get you get a result like yes it tests positive for mdma or yes it tests positive for bath salts that you don't want to consume but it doesn't mean there's other indulterants that don't go undetected so being part of a university setting i would wonder if ssdp could somehow lobby for an anonymous testing service through the groups that own the mass spectrometers like chemistry teams yeah like you know there's probably some overnight work that's going on in the university so i think that's a good thing to be able to get some mass spec time on and get some job experience yeah have you ever heard any clubs thinking about something like that um i don't think that as far as i have heard i don't think we've heard of anyone that's going the mass spectrometer route um but i know that we have had some um chapters and some students that at least individually like on their own time you know um they have purchased their own reagent kits um and have been you know helping their friends out by right they've got um there are some that are doing it a little bit more formally um haven't they have like a text hotline or whatever there's another like has a spot on campus where they like store the kits so people can go and sort of borrow them um so there's a few different ways that that um it may be happening but it's all that's on there as as it is right now it's on their own time it's not a it hasn't been an ssdp activity right per se it's uh it's like something that they recognized a need for among their friends um and we're doing that so um yeah it's definitely another one of those legal gray areas right um and certainly i can't think of any school that would openly allow that um because there's the the drug-free schools act that they get funding and they're not going to be able to do that um so i think that's a good thing to do and if they are condoning drug use in any way they will not get that so um so from an administrative standpoint that would make sense so some of the stuff that um you know that we do that students do even even just talking to students about drugs some schools some more conservative schools have a problem with that um so it can get a little tricky for for some of our chapters but they they do what they can with with what they got that's tough drug-free school act was that ronald reagan uh yeah i think so great great um yeah it looks like 86 i just pulled it up that's tough um but that would be that's an interesting thing i'm going to start talking to some student groups about that like how could they pool resources to like i don't know maybe set up some sort of agreement with third-party labs to do that kind of thing i know there's groups like energy control that do mass spec but it's it's not cheap no um and like how do we democratize the access to that make it cheap make it available and you know super increased safety i i think you know test kits plus these fentanyl strips if done right like if safety is going to go through the roof yeah um we're like the like my observational opinion is that you know there's too much drug harm happening right now but you know if you look at the numbers it's really it's unfortunate but it's not that catastrophic it's not like it's not like arrest numbers it's not like car accident deaths it's still super low like even alcohol related hospitalization is still like way less than that it seems like to me if you're looking at college campuses not necessarily people on the street so you have to kind of like separate the uh the populations a little bit like homeless injectors are obviously far more risk than a college kid right especially a privileged college kid um so so you do have to look at that and but it just seems like the risks like the recent uh edc festival in vegas um electric what is it called daisy carnival or something it's like a really big edm festival there is only a single um drug-related death and it was really because he overheated the the headlines even on your edm.com misappropriately titled it uh like mdma overdose i'm like come on guys get it together your edm i've yelled at them a couple times on this like it is not an overdose it's he overheated because he didn't have water right or enough shade like get it together guys what are you doing i don't understand what those guys are doing so um anything else you want to throw out before we kind of wrap up this segment no i guess just a reminder if there are students listening and you aren't already involved in ssdp um check out your your school see if they have a chapter if not you can start one um and you can go to ssdp.org um to to do that it's pretty simple um and you know you can anyone has access to the just say no resources it's out there on our website for everyone to see um so you can definitely check that out and i'm happy to touch base with folks if they have questions you can email me and stuff so um dr vilmarie narlock thanks again for joining us and we really appreciate your time in the show thank you so much thank you thanks again for tuning in everybody really appreciate you checking us out again please do let us know what you think we really really do want to know what you want to hear about in the show as much as we're doing this show for ourselves we're really doing it for you we really want to make it as impactful to your drug life as we can you know if you're a researcher you want to talk about certain papers you know hit us up maybe let us check out the article or paper and and maybe we can do some analysis and commentary on it for you or we could find some experts to help us we would really like to just make sure we're delivering as much awesome stuff to you as we can and as awesome as possible not just uh marginally awesome well so i'm really curious about what you want to know about breathwork we've talked about breathwork a lot on the show obviously stan groff helped develop a really great model holotropic breathwork that uh is what kyle and i were um loosely trained in not really loosely we explicitly did holotropic breathwork with our teachers lenny and elizabeth gibson in vermont and that's you know what i was really into for a very long time and uh we kind of are doing our own thing now calling it transpersonal breathwork which is uh the groff breathwork model and totally informed and just about everything's the same i can't really think of anything different about it but i'm really curious about what you want to know about breathwork other than that with our training we got a lot of philosophical education that i think is really helpful for understanding what's going on in those states so yeah i really want to know what you think about it if you're curious about it it's just not available let us know maybe we can help you find something near you that would be good there's holotropic breathwork people all over the world we heard there's some folks in germany doing they're not calling it holotropic they're calling it transpersonal breathwork also so maybe check them out too uh depending on where you're at we are interested in traveling doing some sort of international workshops and national workshops for right now i think we're looking at this is the first you'll hear of this a three-day workshop in december in the uh denver area so we'll try to make it really close to the airport if you want to come in from out of town we can make that work for you without having to get a rental car probably so let us know if you're into that into that it'd probably be a week or two before christmas time just because i know people aren't doing anything that week at christmas i don't know why i usually work anyway that's that for the announcements on real world stuff uh and internet stuff there's again our class i hope you're not sick of me talking about it yet but navigating psychedelics lessons on integration and self-care really want you to take care of yourself if you're using psychedelics or other drugs and we want to give you some tools to be safer and to perhaps optimize the experience because uh you know drugs are often done sub optimally and it's really tricky because people it's very rare people are doing single drug use often people are drinking beer drinking liquor also doing acid smoking weed maybe one or two xanaxes mixing up adderall or whatever kind of speed they have and you never know you want to be careful with that kind of stuff and just try to follow some best practices and we talk about a lot of that in the show because you know it's not necessarily possible for everybody to you know have a single drug experience every time they're out doing drugs and we talk about that how to handle that situation is it okay to smoke weed while you're on acid little secret yeah it's fine in fact it might help quite a bit really check us out check us out and we have a lot of great reviews on our website we had leah friedman come on the phone with us recently and she gave us some feedback on the class and she's actually a mental health professional doing a lot of really great work with folks in massachusetts and with the boston theogenic network check her episode out if you haven't heard it but she gave us this as a review the integration and self-care course provided high quality and individually tailored information for anyone from the seasoned psychedelic enthusiast to the curious but uninformed newbie the perspective perspectives offered are useful unbiased empirically validated and generalizable to a wide variety of instances i would recommend this course to anyone who is considering altered states as a mean for personal growth or who seeks to integrate past experiences for their own betterment and for the greatest benefit of society the course helped me add a few new tools and tricks to my arsenal and expanded my perspectives on conscious self-exploration that's leah friedman again co-founder of the boston and theogenic network we also had a therapist from san francisco give us a great review this is jessica katzman side d this is a wonderful thorough survey of psychedelic integration and self-care as a mental health professional and i'm going to give you a little bit of an overview of what this course is all about thank you so much for watching and i'll see you guys in the next video for me that i can utilize both personally for my own growth as well as to help make use of their psychedelic experiences additionally joe and kyle are a delight to listen to and quite knowledgeable and responsive to listeners questions useful format as well yeah we tried to really format the class so that it's easy to navigate on this teachable platform and make sure it's not too confusing and stage it out well so that it's not in the way of the class so that it's not in the way of the class we're kind of building up to more and more complex subjects and thoughts and this is from our friend diego from australia hi diego thanks for listening and thanks for this review diego says when i first saw the course i was skeptical because there's so much information on the internet about psychedelics that can be misleading i watched the first video and i knew right away that you guys knew what you were talking about borrowing a lot from groff and that sort of literature i knew right away it was good stuff the course was definitely worth doing so thank you so much for watching and i'll see you if you have questions feel free to ask psychedelics at email at gmail.com if all that wasn't enough just so you know we're donating five percent of profits to maps.org so you are also contributing to psychedelic science when you buy this class again it's psychedelics today.teachable.com and you can find the class there it will be launched on august 8 and everything will be up and ready you could buy now or you can buy then that's probably the best way to do it so thank you your best way to support the show and make sure we can keep doing it and bring you more and more content we have a grand vision but it will take support to get there so you know check out that class maybe if you can't afford it maybe just shoot us an email to psychedelics today email at gmail.com and maybe we can work something out anyway thanks for checking us out again and really looking forward to bringing you another show soon see you on the other side so we'll see you next time bye bye you Thank you. Thank you for watching!